Family Goal Setting

By Anatta (Anna) Zarchi

A New Year is upon us once more! I’m sure many of you are thinking about your goals for the coming year. Being part of a family means that personal goals often affect others, which is why it’s also great to create shared goals that align the whole family. For example, if your goal is to spend more time on your hobbies, your partner’s and children’s goals could be to help out around the house more so that you have some additional time for yourself. In this way, your personal goal creates a shared goal that motivates everyone. Or if your child says they would like to spend more time with you, that could become a shared goal between you. 

Sharing goals helps the family understand each other and find ways to move forward together in a way that is beneficial for everyone, including finding compromises between conflicting goals. If goals and priorities aren’t communicated, this can cause tension, conflict, and misunderstanding that affects the family negatively rather than positively. Let’s look at some fun activities and ideas for family goal setting.

Reflecting together

NCS’s Creative Director Athalie shares that in her family they always make a bonfire on New Year’s Eve and just before midnight, as they stand by the fire, they each answer one question. The questions are all variations on the themes of looking back on the past year or towards the new year, and could include:

• What is a highlight/lowlight from the past year?
• What was the most difficult lesson you learnt this year?
• What are you looking forward to in the coming year? 
• Who played a big role in your life this year?
• What is a goal that you want to achieve next year?” 

When thinking of the future, it’s always good to look at what you’ve learned from the past. These questions help you create goals by reflecting on your experiences from the past year. Plus, it’s a fun way to celebrate the new year while aligning your goals as a family! 

Creating a family vision board

Counselor Phum suggests drawing a family vision board split into four sectors. The idea is for every member of the family to add their goals or priorities into each sector and explain why it’s a goal. From there, shared goals for each sector may emerge as everyone can see each other’s goals and fine-tune them together. The visual aspect makes it easy to see the whole picture and come up with new ideas to help each other. The four sectors are also a great way to identify and create goals that span all these important areas. The four areas are:

• Health (physical and mental): food, activities, rest, exercise, and so on 
• Relationships: family, friends, social connection.
• Growth: education, career, traveling, individual learning, reading, and so on. 
• Financial: income, savings, expenses, budgeting, financial planning, and so on. 

I tend to not think about exercise, so unless I see the word “health” in front of me, I probably won’t set any goals for that, which I definitely should! You could also do a more detailed version of this with the nine dimensions of well-being: emotional, physical, social, occupational, spiritual, intellectual, cultural, environmental, and financial. 

For this activity, we recommend using a big piece of paper or board so that everyone can see what’s on there. You can also draw and color in each sector to make it more fun for young children. 

Engaging with young children

For kids, the Three Stars and a Wish goal-setting worksheet can be a fun and easy way to set goals. The worksheet asks kids to write down three things that they can do, or that they enjoy, or that they’re good at, and one “wish” for something that they want to be better at. 

Though this is usually done individually, it can be incorporated into family goal setting. Have simple, easy-to-understand conversations with them about individual or family goals, and fill out the worksheet together. For example, if you find you’re feeling overwhelmed in the morning and need a little more time for yourself, you might say, “Mommy thinks you’re big enough to get ready by yourself now, that way I can have more time to get ready too. I’ll help you practice until you can do it by yourself—how does that sound? Let’s write it down together”. Then their “wish” can be getting ready by themselves. You can also put the worksheet up and give them a gold star when they successfully get ready by themselves. This can be both motivating and fun. You can find templates for this online, for example on Careers Portal or Twinkl. 

Supporting older kids and teens

For kids and teens who aren’t comfortable with sitting down and sharing their goals, you might initiate a conversation in a more “unofficial” way. For example, you could tell them about your own goals for the year in a casual setting—such as in the car or during meals—and ask them what they think. This can be a means of inviting them to share their own opinions and goals in a way that they may find less pressuring. 

You could also ask them specific questions or suggest goals based on things you’ve observed or that they’ve said in passing. For example, if you notice your child is watching a lot of TV and rarely getting any movement, you might say, “Let’s go out and play more after school. Then we can watch some TV after dinner or once you’ve finished your homework—how does that sound?” You could make this a shared goal by spending more time with them, taking them to activity venues, or getting them engaging toys and activities such as balls, puzzles, coloring books, dolls, and so on. 

Or, if you notice your child is spending more time studying, you could say, “You’re studying a lot these days. Do you want to tell me more about it?” as a way to encourage them to talk about their goals and priorities. State your observation and ask general questions, but avoid specific questions such as, “Are you trying to get your grades up?” as that might feel pressuring. Small conversations like this can lead to bigger ones about both personal and shared goals. 

We at NCS hope you find these ideas helpful, and we wish everyone a very happy new year! 

About the Author

Anna works for New Counseling Service (NCS), an internationally recognized mental health center in Bangkok with a diverse team of licensed counselors. NCS has provided counseling services in Thailand and surrounding regions for over 20 years, with therapists specializing in a wide variety of issues such as anxiety, depression, work stress, relationships, and more. ncsbkk.com/ncs/